DIFFERENT STROKES
WHEN the LA Rams beat Cincinnati Bengals to win the Super Bowl last weekend the airwaves and print media were swamped by Arsenal fans, begging the question why should footie fans be bothered by what happens in a different sport in a city five and a half thousand miles away from Woolwich? The answer is quite simple, the Rams and the Gooners are both owned by multi-billionaire Stan Kroenke, who has just lavished a cool five billion dollars on his beloved American football team’s stonking new stadium while merely chucking titbits in the direction of Islington. It’s important for the Gooner fans to realise that Arsenal are wayyyyyy down on Kroenke’s priorities, which, in order, would seem to be the Rams, basketball’s Denver Nuggets, and ice hockey’s Colorado Avalanche, then possibly Arsenal ahead of his US footie team Colorado Rapids. Add in his ownership of a myriad of lower league teams, multiple radio and TV stations and magazine empire, then it should be no surprise that his main interest in Arsenal is just as a vessel to make money. The same situation exists at Liverpool, who are owned by the FSG group that owns the Boston Red Sox, and United where the Glazers own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. American owners are invested in the Premier League purely for the dosh and worldwide commercial appeal of the English game. The other type of owner prevalent in the Premier League is the owner that’s in it purely for the kudos, as in Abu
Dhabi’s Manchester City, and Saudi’s Newcastle. This class of owner will spend whatever it takes to make the club successful while in the process sportswashing their parent countries’ dubious human rights records, meanwhile the club that started the ball rolling were Chelsea, who were used to ‘clean’ some dodgy Russian Rubles. There are some owners who clearly aren’t in it for the money with Norwich’s Delia Smith being the best example, but these days such an owner is getting increasingly hard to find. My own club is owned by a Londoner who looks after his billions in the Bahamas while living on a £12 million yacht. He puts nothing into Spurs, insisting that the club live within its means, while his own main interests are golf and owning golf courses within megabucks private resorts catering for other multi-millionaires and billionaires, including the likes of Tiger Woods. Gone are the days when the local butchers and bank managers were to found on the boards of our big clubs, but as they say, that’s progress.
Fixing a problem that didn’t exist
Not for the first time in the past few years the football authorities, in this case UEFA, have scored a massive own goal; Real Madrid went to PSG on Tuesday and spent the entire game in their own half trying to bore their way to a 0-0 draw. Why did they do so? Because UEFA in their wisdom have done away with the away goals rule, so
there was no real incentive to open up. I said at the time this was a mistake and the fact that PSG scored in time added on doesn’t negate that view.
Team of the week
Jose Sa Wolves, Romain Perraud Southampton, Conor Cody Wolves, Seamus Coleman Everton, Kieran Trippier Newcastle, Tariq Lamptey Brighton, Ruben Neves Wolves, Che Adams Southampton, Anthony Gordon Everton, Raheem Sterling Citeh, Jarrod Bowen West Ham. Manager Bruno Lage Wolves; it’s gone largely unnoticed but Nuno Espirito Santo’s replacement at Wolves has quietly got his team playing some decent football and climbing the table. Player of the week Kieran Trippier Newcastle; when newly minted Newcastle made Trippier their first signing in the recent transfer window a lot of Toon fans were underwhelmed, I wasn’t. The England regular who last season won La Liga with Atletico and was highly rated by Diego Simeone was just the player Newcastle needed and has been the catalyst for their recent revival. How vital he is to the Geordies will now be seen as he is set to be out for a few weeks with a metatarsal injury picked up against Villa on Sunday.
This week’s games
Premier League today 2:30; West Ham vs Newcastle. 5pm; Arsenal vs Brentford, Villa vs Watford, Brighton vs Burnley,
Palace vs Chelsea, Liverpool vs Norwich, Southampton vs Everton. 6:30; Citeh vs Spurs. Tomorrow 4pm; Leeds vs United. 6:30; Wolves vs Leicester. Wednesday 9:30; Burnley vs Spurs, Watford vs Palace. 9:45; Liverpool vs Leeds. Thursday 9:45; Arsenal vs Wolves. Friday 10pm; Southampton vs Norwich. Selected Championship today 2:30; Fulham vs Huddersfield. 5pm; Blackburn vs Millwall, Bristol City vs Middlesborough, Luton vs West Brom, QPR vs Hull. Tuesday 9:45; Middlesborough vs West Brom. Wednesday 9:45; QPR vs Blackpool, Sheffield United vs Blackburn. Selected Scotland Sunday 2pm; Dundee United vs Rangers. 5pm; Celtic vs Dundee. Champions League round of 16 Tuesday 10pm; Chelsea vs Lille. Wednesday 10pm; Atletico Madrid vs United. The game of the week would normally be Citeh vs Spurs but as I’ll be anywhere but near a TV this weekend for mental health reasons related to the latter club I can’t possibly comment on the undoubted outcome.
And finally
Last week’s question; what is taken every year to the cup final but never used? Way back in 1901 Southern League club Spurs defeated first division Sheffield United 3-1 in a replay played at Bolton. The happy directors wanted to put their own personal stamp on the cup presentation so produced blue and white ribbons which were placed on the trophy handles before being handed to the winning captain Jack Jones. This first by the club of firsts saw the practice taken up permanently, and so the answer to the question is the losing team’s ribbons. John Grundey and Steve Langbridge were both spot on with the answer. This week’s question: there are a few cities in England with more than one football team but one of those has been spectacularly bad at the art of winning stuff, which city boasts clubs with a combined 267 years of existence, during which zero major honours have been won and a total of just four of those combined 267 years have been spent in the top flight?
That’ll show them. While police across Europe are blasting demonstrators with water cannons or tear gassing them, the New Zealanders have shown the real way to put a stop to civil disobedience: megawatts of Barry Manilow. This reminded me of my mate Peter Clout and his other half Ziggy, who have seen Mr Manilow over 30 times live in the UK, the States and Europe over the years. Probably something to do with the fact they’re Gooners. That said, Spurs fans could have told the Kiwis about the restorative power of Manilow years ago given that Can’t Smile Without You is a go to song on the terraces in good times (sadly not heard so much these days). The kicker to the above is that on being blasted with Barry, the demonstrators responded by singing and dancing along. My old mate Clouty would approve.